Author: tom

Saturday Flashback: Kikki Danielsson & Dr. Alban – Papaya Coconut

Comfort food.

Tim: What is this, you ask? Well I have absolutely no idea at all. Occasionally when I’m looking for tracks I’ll check Swedish music charts, and for no reason that I can discern, this 13 year old version of a 25 year old song is near the top of the iTunes chart. So: what do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ8yj1aOIiU

Tom: Oh my word, it’s like I’m 13 again. How is something so objectively terrible so damned enjoyable?

Tim: Weird, isn’t it? But, is it objectively terrible (by our standards)? It certainly has great redeeming points – the dance backing behind the rapping verse bits is lots of fun, the steel drums add a nice summery feel, the ‘we can fly’ prevalent in the chorus is uplifting, if that’s what you’re looking for in this song (though there are undoubtedly far better ones) – and all in all they outweigh the admittedly numbers dodgy bits. Well, I reckon so.

Tom: I knew exactly what it was going to do before it did it – even down to the textbook mid-90s reggae-rap bit. It’s like comfort food, in a way: it’s not fancy, it’s not particularly good for you, but now and again… well, yes. I like this song.

Tim: Good. Good good good.

September – Party In My Head

Track one was pretty good and track two was pretty awful; track three?

Tim: This was announced a couple of weeks back as the third single off Love CPR (still hate that title), yet we’ve still not featured it. UNTIL NOW. Track one was pretty good and track two was pretty awful; track three?

Tim: I think: very good.

Tom: Whereas I think: oh.

Tim: Really? Much as with Me & My Microphone, it’s not the September we used to know when she first appeared; at times this could easily be a Ke$ha or Britney track, and yet it would be a very good Ke$ha or Britney track.

Tom: And I think it loses a lot for that. September’s tracks used to be melodic, anthemic, rousing stuff (remember “Cry For You”?) – this just doesn’t have the same kind of oomph. I can’t see All Around The World doing a dozen remixes of this.

Tim: Perhaps not, but it has a decent melody, autotune that, while unnecessary, isn’t totally offensive, and generally just – it sounds right. Not sure why – undoubtedly entirely subjective – but I like this a lot.

Tom: For once, I’m going to have to disagree. I don’t dislike it, it’s just… well, I reckon it should have stayed as an album track.

Tim: ‘For once’? Really?

Will Young – Jealousy

This has a lovely Sound of Arrows feel to it.

Tim: Will Young? He makes music for my grandparents, doesn’t he? No, and this has a lovely Sound of Arrows feel to it – gentle music but with a fair beat behind it – and for that reason I like this considerably.

Tom: “And it feeeels… like Jersey.” I know that’s not what he’s singing, but it’s all I can hear.

Tim: Eh, a little bit, I guess. Anyway, some may think “Oh, this isn’t the lovely Evergreen Will Young we started off with, I like his granny-pleasing stuff;” this is true, but music changes and this is an example of good change.

Tom: Agreed, with that and with the Sound of Arrows comparison. I suspect this will eventually get a genre name, in the same way that electroswing existed for years before it coalesced into an actual genre.

Tim: Others may say that it’s still just boring old Will Young and we want something HEAVY.

Tom: To a certain extent, they’re right: he gets going a bit during the last chorus, but it never really reaches any kind of apex.

Tim: Well, I think you’re wrong, but if you want to RAVE to this, have a remix by The Alias.

Tom: And that fixed it in the first fifteen seconds.

Britney Spears – I Wanna Go

There’s no way that was meant to be good, was it? Really?

Tom: What’s the deal with music videos having director credits in them now?

Tim: I have absolutely no idea what that video was all about.

Tom: Also, Britney – you’re not Lady Gaga. Forty seconds of intro for a fairly lame gag really isn’t worth it.

Terribly blue-screened car ride. Slightly creepy driver pouring milk over self. What?

Tim: Yes, but there’s no way that was meant to be good, was it? Really? Hell, my fifteen year old cousin could do better than that on the iMac he just bought.

Tom: Let’s talk about the music. Britney’s increasingly sounding like an impressionist doing a poor version of her: I’m not even sure how it’s possible to achieve that vocal tone without major computer edi– er, never mind.

Tim: Well, it’s a decent enough track – just a fairly standard post-album release single, and more a ‘hello! would you please mind skipping to track four on the album now? and then buying it again please?’ than an actual new song.

Tom: It’s a perfectly serviceable pop song, but I can’t help feeling that if anyone except Britney Spears released it there’d be no great fuss about it. Good to know she’s bounced back into being a regular pop star, though.

Tim: She stopped? But… but Britney is queen of pop. Everyone knows that. Don’t they?

Glorious Inc – Dance Or Die

“I think this really works.”

Tim: Normally when I give you a track, I have a good idea of where you’ll stand with it. This one? Not a clue.

Dance or Die by Glorious Inc

Tim: I think this really works, and according to iTunes Sweden agrees, but what do YOU think?

Tom: I can’t categorise it, but I definitely like it. Well, most of it; it switches itself up so much! I’m embarrassed to say that I think I rather like the dubstep-y bit.

Tim: HA! Knew we’d get you accepting it eventually.

This really does move about everywhere. Ooh, a piano based dance track? Nope. Standard electro-house stuff? Sort of. Bit of dubstep in there? Sure, why not. It sort of reminds me of a DJ at a club I went to recently who seamlessly(ish) mixed Nero into the Spice Girls followed that with LMFAO, then went with Gina G, chucked in some Tinie Tempah and then moved on to Whigfield.

Tom: DJs who can actually pull that off are in pretty short supply. I reckon whoever produced this track might be one of them.

Mina Vänner – Ingen Som

Teenagers being jerks.

Tim: The following contains adult themes, and images which some viewers may find offensive.

Tom: Ooh, good.

Tom: Hold on, those aren’t the good kind of adult themes! That’s just teenagers being jerks.

Tim: Well I suppose so – and what with all the vandalism, theft, alcohol, drugs, nudity, the video is actually considerably more interesting than the music itself.

Tom: And a jacket with “Murder, She Wrote” on the back. Finnish hipsters, or just something his mother handed down to him?

Tim: Not that the music’s bad, though it does get somewhat repetitive. To be honest, this is one of the songs where I really wish I could speak, or at least understand, what they’re on about, because I’m fairly sure it would make it more enjoyable.

Tom: I’m not sure it would; the processing on the voice gives it a kind of nasal whine that reminds me of someone with dodgy adenoids.

Tim: Well, maybe he does have dodgy adenoids. Maybe the song’s all about that, and that far from the whine being irritating, it’s the whole purpose of the song. Though I’ll admit that’s unlikely.

And yes, I can translate the lyrics and all that (though they don’t seem to be online for this), but it’s not quite the same. I do know the title translates to ‘Nobody’ or something similar, but that could be ‘Nobody understands us’ or ‘Nobody can stop us doing what we want to do’ or maybe even ‘Nobody wants to help me sort out my adenoids’.

Tom: Well, I wish someone would stop them.

Tim: Is it just me, or does ‘adenoids’ just sound a bit weird after a while?

Wrethov – One Love One Goal

“Drei Löwen auf dem Hemd, und noch Jules Rimet strahlend, ja?”

Tim: Proving that football isn’t just for blokes, the Women’s World Cup has apparently arrived, and the Swedish have got a theme song. Sung by a bloke, which somewhat spoils it, but never mind.

Tom: Now, let’s be honest: no matter what, this can’t compare to the definitive World Cup song, Three Lions. That song’s got so deep into the footballing world that even the German fans sing it. (I was in the same train carriage as a group of them once.)

Tim: Drei Löwen auf dem Hemd, und noch Jules Rimet strahlend, ja?

Tom: Oh, you totally ran that through Google Translate.

Tim: Anyway, with expectations duly lowered – let’s have a listen to this.

Tim: I really like this. I wasn’t sure to start with about the staccato style of music (get me being all technical), but it gives it a whole ‘yeah, let’s get out and do this thing and win it’ that presumably it’s meant to have.

Tom: Now, personally I can’t hear the crowd chanting “One! Love! One Love One Goal”, but they’ve had a bloody good effort at making a song that’s part-football-chant. I can’t see it taking off, but full marks for effort.

Tim: BETTER ENDING: a key change for just the very last ‘goal’, and extend it a bit, instead of just going back to the usual one.

Oh, and remember Melanie C, the second-most-successful soloist out of the Spice Girls? Turns out she’s done the actual official song.

Tom: That’s… nothing to do with football at all.

Miss Inga feat. Dominika & La Camilla: Don’t Try To Steal My Limelight

Oh my.

Tim: This I predict, will somewhat polarise opinion, and I’m fairly sure I can guess where the majority would side.

Tim: But screw the majority, because I love this. I will happily confess that part of it may just be all the neon lights in the video (which is, let’s be honest, one of the gayest we’ve ever seen, and we’ve seen a lot of Le Kid so that’s saying something).

Tom: Oh my. It’s registering at 15.7 VP* according to my calculations.

*”Villagepeople”. It’s the SI unit for how camp a music video is.

Tim: Anyway, I like the beat, the chorus melody – I think the first line reminds me of something else but I don’t care – and this song’s just good fun, really.

Tom: It doesn’t half go on a bit though. Not sure quite why I’m so irritated by the track, but I am.

Tim: Oh. Well, one thing that’s definitely a bit weird: I think the vague idea of the song is that Dominika and La Dawn French —

Tom: Ooh, handbags.

Tom: Oh, come on, you’re saying you don’t see it?

Anyway, they’re saying they’re better than Miss Inga, and that sort of comes across in the video but you don’t really hear it in the lyrics unless you’re listening properly because the music takes all the attention. Except for the line ‘Miss Inga, you’re not a very good singer’, which stands out so blatantly you’d think he (yes, he) hates himself.

That dog looks slightly uncomfortable, though.

Tom: Well, wouldn’t you be?

Jenni Vartiainen – Eikö Kukaan Voi Meitä Pelastaa?

“Ain’t that just a chorus and a half?”

Tim: Or, alternatively, Can’t Anyone Save us? (ish).

Tom: I think that beat’s the same one as the ‘demo’ on the old Casio keyboard I had when I was five.

Tim: Give it a sec before letting the standard snarkiness kick in, please.

It’s from the same best-selling-of-2010-in-Finland album as En haluu kuolla thingy (she likes the long titles, it seems), and my word ain’t that just a chorus and a half?

Tom: Bloody hell. Talk about a complete change. From Casiocore to full orchestral Broadway production.

Tim: It reminds me – quite a bit, what with the big piano stuff they’ve got going on under everything else – of Didrik Solli-Tangen’s My Heart Is Yours and, much as with that one, I love it. Google seems to fall down a bit when translating Finnish, but this song’s really just about the music, I think, and wow is that some proper music.

Tom: It really is. So… many… instruments!

Tim: I don’t know if it’s a shame the verses aren’t the same level – part of me wishes they were, just because, but part of me likes that the choruses are so big, and that wouldn’t really be appreciated. Besides, it’s not like either of them, especially the second one with the extra beat, is particularly empty.

Tom: There’s no way you could make the verses as big as that chorus. I don’t think you can fit that much music into a song.

Nicola Roberts – Beat Of My Drum

It’s like Billie Piper got a Casio keyboard.

Tom: Released last week, this has been sent in by our Radio Insider, Matt. If you don’t recognise the name “Nicola Roberts”, feel free to substitute “the ginger one from Girls Aloud”.

Tim: Indeed. Gaga has her Monsters, Justin has Beliebers, and Ms Roberts has Team Ginge.

Tim: No.

Tom: It’s like Billie Piper got a Casio keyboard.

Tim: Yeah, but Billie Piper had good music. Mind you, so did Nicola before Girls Aloud broke up. SORRY, ‘went on hiatus’.

Tom: This really irritated me on first listen, but I realised towards the end that I’d started to enjoy it in a Ting Tings kind of way. So I hit ‘play’ again and, now that my brain had gotten used to it.

Tim: One of the problems I have with this is the chorus. Not that it’s a bad chorus (though it is, but that’s not relevant right now), but that it’s the sort of chorus, what with the letters and everything, that is crying out for a dance. You know, like YMCA or Macarena or Saturday Night, that everyone can get excited about and do at a school disco or cheesy nightclub or suchlike. And there isn’t one. There are three, at least, which is stupid. ESPECIALLY since in the first chorus when she’s moving her arms up bit by bit, they’re horizontal on the V and V-shaped on the E. Idiotic, I tell you.

Some people say I go on unnecessarily lengthy rants about tiny unimportant things. I’ve just realised they’re actually sort of right, aren’t they?

Tom: Yes. They are.

Anyway, don’t get me wrong – the versus and the first part of the chorus are still terrible, but the cheerleader chants and one-note-drone bits of the chorus have a certain Toni Basil something about them. I think.

Tim: Who?

Tom: Hey, Mickey!

Tim: OLD.